Lux Sit
by hangmeuptodry
Summary: Sequel to Tempus Fugit. "You've broken her heart so many times, Kakashi. Let her come to you," Tsunade said. He could only hope she would come soon. —Kakashi, Sakura.


**A/N: **Sequel to Tempus Fugit. Enjoy. The events in the upcoming chapter of Dicta Prius happen after this story.

**Title: **Lux Sit

**Summary: **Sequel to Tempus Fugit. "You've broken her heart so many times, Kakashi. Let her come to you," Tsunade said. He could only hope she would come soon. —Kakashi, Sakura.

**Genre: **A little hurt/comfort, friendship

**Characters/Pairings: **Kakashi and Sakura, Slight Tsunade and Sakura, Teacher/Student Bonds

**Status:** Complete. Check Chapter II of Dicta Prius for the last of this verse And SasuSaku.

* * *

Not many things kept Kakashi up at night. He was a man who kept his past in his head. He didn't toss and turn or reflect on his day before going to bed.

However, last night all he could think about was the coming morning and facing Sakura after all of the things she had told him the last time they saw each other.

He could admit he had the emotional maturity of a 4 year old—it had taken him months to approach Sasuke after his return—but this was ridiculous.

Sakura had always been there.

So why did she feel like a stranger?

Kakashi fixed his head band over his left eye and then did a teleportation jutsu to the outskirts of Konoha's forest.

Tsunade said that they would be training on the outskirts of the forest.

Now he understood why. There was Sakura, in the midst of craters and debris, doing one armed push ups and a tree strapped to her back with chakra wire.

A tree was strapped to her back.

_A freaking tree._

"Good job, Sakura! That's 30 seconds off your last recorded time."

Sakura, clad in what looked like a black sports bra and spandex shorts, seemed like an entirely different person.  
She hauled the tree off her back and stood up. Closing her eyes and lifting her head towards the sky, she rolled her muscles to keep them from seizing up. Her taut stomach was glistening and her hair was piled on a top of her head in a tight bun. Dirt was smeared on her arms, knees, and back. The humidity in the air helped little blades of grass stick her to her lean physique.

When it rained later, it would pour.

"Ah, there you are, Kakashi. Of all days to be late."

Sakura cracked open an eye and looked through him.

"Tsunade-shishou, why is Kakashi here?"

Sakura didn't even bother to address him, and that felt like a punch to the gut.

The Godaime opened her mouth to explain, but was beaten to the punch.

"I'm here, Sakura," Kakashi stepped forward, confident but cautious—a perfect shinobi—of the girl in black, "Because we haven't sparred in a while and I wanted to observe your progress. It seems I've been slacking on that."

Sakura snorted, loud and defiant.  
Opening her mouth to retort, she only stopped when Tsunade shot her a look.

"Alright, let's get a light spar started since you still have a half-shift back at the hospital, Sakura. Take opposite sides of the field."

Sidestepping a crater, Kakashi proceeded to move towards a tree on his right. He was hoping to feel the weight of Sakura's eyes on him, but it seems she didn't spare him a glance.

To say that disappointed him would be an understatement.

"Shishou, why are you doing this?"

Sakura turned towards her teacher, turning redder by the minute. She didn't want to spar against Kakashi. She didn't want anything to do with the man.

As he analyzed her from across the field, she felt a bit overexposed.  
When had she wore so little in front of him before?

She couldn't recall a previous circumstance.

"He's trying, Sakura. Better late than never, right?"

Tsunade tried to appease Sakura with a small smile. She could only imagine the turmoil her apprentice was going through right now.

As the Hokage, she was supposed to be impartial to every shinobi. Shinobi were judged based on their ability and rank, not personal circumstance.

Yet, a small part of Tsunade resented Kakashi.

Sure, she had gotten to pick up his slack and she gained a talented, loyal apprentice.

But Sakura had changed once Sasuke's return happened and the dynamics of Team Seven had stayed the same.

It just wasn't fair to her.

She watched as Sakura took a offensive stance to start out.

"Your best offense is your defense," she once told the pink haired girl about to spar against her former sensei.

Something told Tsunade that it wouldn't be that way during this battle. She felt like she shouldn't of given the call for them to start, but did anyway.

Sakura wouldn't do anything reckless.

_Right? _

As Sakura whipped out a kunai, running at Kakashi, Tsunade wasn't too sure.

* * *

Kakashi was bleeding from his side, a deep gash right above his liver.

Any closer and Sakura could've _killed_ him.

When he realized that fact, Kakashi had decided to pin Sakura down.

She squirmed from under him as he straddled her back, her legs too tired to actually fight, yet still kicking.

"Get off me!"

"Do you admit defeat?"

"No."

"Then no."

He doesn't know how she did it, but when Kakashi woke up, he was against a tree, shielded from the sun as Tsunade tended to his face.

* * *

"No wonder you wear a mask. You could give the Uchiha a run for his money."

Kakashi looked up at his Hokage. Her mouth was in a neutral slant but her amber eyes were laughing.

"How long have I been out?"

"About 20 minutes. Sakura stomped off to the hospital before your back even hit the ground."

"I wasn't expecting that. She could've killed me."

"I don't enjoy death any more than the next Hokage does, but you deserved it."

Kakashi's lone eye widened to a full circle.

"Don't give me that look," The Slug Princess waved her hand in the air, as if she was sending back a cup of sake that smelled like rubbing alcohol.

"You didn't think she could land a hit on you, did you?"

The silence that greeted her question proved her right.

"Do you think I'm too late?"

Kakashi needed a second opinion. So far, his latest encounters with Sakura had not been optimal. What if she never wanted to reconcile with him? He was trying the best he could, but he was an emotionally stunted man.

Couldn't he get some slack?

"She's not going to cut you any slack."

He hadn't realized he said that aloud.

"She needs time, Kakashi."

"How much time? When do I know how to approach her while assuring that my life isn't in mortal danger?"

The blonde beauty chuckled at his distress, and rolled her eyes.

"Stop being such a drama queen. I might not be such an unbiased party, but I know Sakura. And she loves you."

"Well now I see why Sasuke is so reluctant to admit his feelings for her and just watches from afar. How Naruto still has a cranium in his head is a mystery after all those years of getting hit in the head by her."

"It might not seem like it but she does love you. Do you remember about a week after Uchiha came back? And I sent you on that mission to one of Orochimaru's abandoned bases in order to retrieve a few sealing scrolls for the Cursed Seal of Heaven for that guy, Juugo?"

Kakashi's confused looks were really starting to agitate her.

"Well you had come across a few rouge nin who had made a home of the base and were terrorizing the surrounding village. You and your dysfunctional boys took on 4 jounin level ninja each. But you told Sakura—"

"To stay behind."

"Yes. The same thing then happened at the next base you came across and when you came across that band of missing Kumo ninja."

Kakashi wanted to bash his head into the bark behind him, but Tsunade would break both his legs for undoing the work she just did.

He only wanted to protect Sakura. At the time, she was still just a child in his eyes. It hadn't sunk in that she grew up yet.

No matter which Akatsuki she killed or what poison she cured or created or which war she had fought in—

He still saw Sakura as a girl at the time.

He was such an _idiot. _

"It was on that mission she started to believe her role in Team Seven would never change. And when a few months passed after that, proving her right, she didn't want to be around anymore."

Her voice hardened as she continued and pulled up the headband covering Kakashi's Sharingan. He was too stunned to move, but the doujutsu Obito gave him caught every single word Tsunade said.

"For Sakura's sake, give her a breather. You've broken her heart so many times, Kakashi. Let her come to you."

He could only hope she came soon.

* * *

If one was crazy enough to go out in this weather, one would find two things that seemed out of place.

One: You couldn't tell the difference between the sky and the ground.

Two: Sakura Haruno huddled in the doorway of a building.

Not only is she as crazy as you to be out in this weather, but the building isn't even hers.

Sakura hugged herself, trying to muster up the courage to do what she should've left until tomorrow, when he had sufficient time to cool off if he was still mad.

When her clothes wouldn't have been stuck to her skin.

Her shishou said, "He's trying, Sakura."

That was all she had wanted all along.

Now that he was giving it to her, she shouldn't have acted the way she did.

With that final thought, Sakura picked the lock and entered the building.

* * *

Kakashi sat on his couch, rubbing his jaw, deep in thought. Tsunade had healed it perfectly, so why did it still ache like hell? He could still feel the throbbing and bleeding of his mouth, from when his teeth clamped down on his tongue, that he had experienced when he first woke up.

She had been yelling into the ground before she proceeded to crack his lights out.

Even now he can't remember her actually punching him.

_"Let her come to you."_

Was it possible to miss someone is you deserted them first? Kakashi was slowly figuring out the answer to that question.

_Yes_.

The big window of his living room had its curtains drawn back., revealing nothing but a torrential downpour. It looked like the earth had mixed with the sky. Everything was a single coat of gray as the rain poured down without falter.

He eyed the cold tea sitting on the coffee table in front of him, not so far from the place Sakura stood before him as she proceeded to tell him off.

And to think he thought she was a child.

No. He had failed her in her youth an didn't even make up for it, like he did for Naruto.

_Abandoned. _

That was the perfect word to describe Sakura.

He hadn't felt like this big of a failure since Sasuke left the village.

_"Let her come to you."_

Well what if she didn't?

Deciding against ignoring the knock on his door, Kakashi trudged toward the visitor.

He was glad he did.

There was Sakura, dripping wet from the rain outside. She didn't have her doctor's coat on or the revealing training outfit she had on this morning.

Instead, she was dressed like a civilian, with her long sleeved navy blue top, beige skirt that he had always thought was _tootootoo_ short, and her black boots that made her legs look impossibly long. Her clothes clung to her body with the rainwater adhesive she ran in to get to his apartment, and her pink strands looked darker.  
Where had the time gone?  
When had the skinny, gangly girl of 12 turned into a beautiful, charming, intelligent young woman?

He wouldn't know.

Tsunade's words rang in his mind.

_"You've broken her heart so many times."_

He could almost hear the groups of raindrops fall on the floor, signaling him to let her inside, get her some dry clothes before the cold, winter air and rain got her impossibly sick.  
Yet, Kakashi only stood there.

Her bright eyes bore into his. Neither moved for some time. She wasn't moving because she was still scared to jump, no matter how much she knew she wanted and needed this so bad.

He wasnt moving because he was preparing himself to receive her, and hoping that that is what she came to his apartment to do and not dislocate his jaw again.

Both needed to heal.  
Desperately needed to heal.

The force of Sakura's arms being thrown around his body, trapping him in an embrace caused him to stumble backwards.

She was wet, like a sponge, and the water seeped through his clothing quickly. Her hands were impossibly cold.

_You know what they say. Cold hands, warm heart._

He could feel her trembling against him, yet she wasn't shivering.

Sakura's mixture of tears and rainwater soaked his shirt more thoroughly, but he didn't care.

"I'm sorry I took so long, Kakashi-sensei."

"No, I'm sorry."

She looked up at him, dark eyelashes bedazzled with drops of water, nose impossibly red, eyebrows furrowed, and full lips slightly parted, as if she wanted to say something but didn't understand his response.

She had never looked prettier.

Like a dewy cherry blossom after a spring shower.

He decided to clarify.

"It seems the only thing I taught you was how to be late."

The smile she gave him was enough to quicken his heart beat.

Sakura laughed, face wet and voice breathy.

"I can't wait until my next lesson."

His right eye creased in a response good enough for her.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

_"I can't wait to teach you, Sakura. I'm sorry I took so long."_

Both stayed at his place that night, dressed in his slightly-faded white 

_t-shirts and sweatpants. _

* * *

Hope you enjoyed it!

Make sure to read Dicta Prius.

xx mm.


End file.
